Useful Pages

Friday, May 29, 2015

The first of an epic swords & sorcery fantasy series, Marc Turner's When the Heavens Fall features gritty characters, deadly magic, and meddlesome gods!

If you pick a fight with Shroud, Lord of the Dead, you had better ensure your victory, else death will mark only the beginning of your suffering.

A book giving its wielder power over the dead has been stolen from a fellowship of mages that has kept the powerful relic dormant for centuries. The thief, a crafty, power-hungry necromancer, intends to use the Book of Lost Souls to resurrect an ancient race and challenge Shroud for dominion of the underworld. Shroud counters by sending his most formidable servants to seize the artifact at all cost.

However, the god is not the only one interested in the Book, and a host of other forces converge, drawn by the powerful magic that has been unleashed. Among them is a reluctant Guardian who is commissioned by the Emperor to find the stolen Book, a troubled prince who battles enemies both personal and political, and a young girl of great power, whose past uniquely prepares her for an encounter with Shroud. The greatest threat to each of their quests lies not in the horror of an undead army but in the risk of betrayal from those closest to them. Each of their decisions comes at a personal cost and will not only affect them, but also determine the fate of their entire empire.

Love, revenge, devious gods, lots of scheming and intrigue as well as legions of undead. What more could you ask for?

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

What is the What: the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng

by Dave Eggers

If you enjoyed Zeitoun, A heartbreaking work of staggering genius, or A hologram for the king, please join us on June 19 for the Wellesley Friday Morning Book/Movie Club when we will discuss What is the What : The Authobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, Eggers' astonishing and harrowing novel of a Sudanese refuge who triumphs over horrific tragedy and disaster. The group meets at 10AM in the Arnold Room on the 2nd floor of the Main Library. The book is available for checkout at the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor.

riveting story of the Nicholsons, father and son co-conspirators who deceived their country by selling national secrets to Russia.

Jim Nicholson was one of the CIA's top veteran case officers. By day, he taught spycraft at the CIA's clandestine training center, The Farm. By night, he was a minivan-driving single father racing home to have dinner with his kids.

But Nicholson led a double life. For more than two years, he had met covertly with agents of Russia's foreign intelligence service and turned over troves of classified documents. In 1997, Nicholson became the highest ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage.

But his duplicity didn't stop there. While behind the bars of a federal prison, the former mole systematically groomed the one person he trusted most to serve as his stand-in: his youngest son, Nathan.

When asked to smuggle messages out of prison to Russian contacts, Nathan saw an opportunity to be heroic and to make his father proud.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Naomi Novik, author of the New York Times bestselling and critically
acclaimedTemeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk
stories and legends. Uprooted is a wonderful story loosely based on a number of fairy tales from Eastern Europe. Naomi is of Polish and Russian descent, and the stories her family used to tell her as a child left an indelible impression upon her. Our Dragon doesn't eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that's not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he's still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we're grateful, but not that grateful.

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay.

But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood. The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows, everyone knows, that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn't, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

The Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won Itby John FerlingJohn Ferling is a very well respected author of many books on the American Revolution including; The Ascent of George Washington, and Almost a Miracle.Books
chronicling the Revolution have largely ranged from multivolume tomes
that appeal to scholars and the most serious general readers to
microhistories that necessarily gloss over swaths of Independence era
history with only a cursory treatment.

Written in Ferling's engaging and narrative-driven style, Whirlwind is a fast-paced and scrupulously told one-volume history of this fascinating time. Ferling balances the social and political concerns of the era with a careful examination of the war itself. An ideal book for armchair military history buffs.

The perspective of the average American revolutionary is examined, while also explaining the causes of the American Revolution. Ferling gives us his insight on, the war that won the American Revolution, and the meaning of the Revolution overall.

Combining careful scholarship, arresting detail, and illustrative storytelling, Whirlwind is a unique and compelling addition to any collection of books on the American Revolution.